ALBANY - State Controller Thomas DiNapoli - whose office's practices are under investigation - Monday defended the way he's run the pension fund since taking office in 2007.

"We have an open door policy, so that means if anybody wants to come in and make a suggestion to us, we're willing to look at it, and it has to go through our process," DiNapoli said.

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DiNapoli was responding to a Daily News report on Friday that the attorney general's office is looking into whether financial firms seeking state pension fund business are hiring well-connected lobbyists and consultants to get them access to DiNapoli.

"Any suggestion that in any way our process is not one that is rigorous and measures our investment decisions on the results is wrong, is nonsense," he said.

DiNapoli, who took office in February 2007, said his office has enacted changes to make the pension process "more rigorous now than it's ever been."

More changes are on the way, he said. "I'm very strongly standing behind our policies and procedures," he added.

The thrust of the probe was a possible pay-to-play scam during disgraced Controller Alan Hevesi's four-year tenure.

Cuomo's investigators recently expanded the probe after it was learned that some firms had hired high-powered lobbyists and consultants with ties to DiNapoli to get them meetings with the controller's office.